In Kansas, the secretary of state, Kris Kobach, is running against former lieutenant governor and now governor Jeff Colyer. Colyer became governor when Sam Brownback was tapped to convert the heathens. Kobach is definitely the Trumpian candidate here, Colyer the Cuckservatism, Inc marionette.

Yes, Kansas is in the cuck corridor. But even cuck corridor Republicans like Trump now. His approval-disapproval among Kansas registered Republicans is 80.2%-17.9% (N = 263). Because the August 7th vote in Kansas is a closed primary, they're the ones who matter.

16 comments:

This is why I'm sanguine about 2018 and 2020. Republicans across the board approve of Trump. Hardcore NeverTrumpers are now an irrelevant fringe (well, not that they were ever much else!), and conservatives who grumbled about Trump a couple of years ago mostly keep their mouths shut and just snipe at the latest SJW stupidity.

People like us have been disappointed by Trump's lack of progress on the Wall and his slow pace on immigration more broadly. Our frustration is justified and we need to keep the pressure up, but he's the guy we need for now, and Republicans and Independents have warmed up to him, been pleasantly surprised by his job performance.

I believe in Kobach as a perfect "womp womp" response to my former Facebook friends and the leftist Twitterati. What is Colyer but a bow to their PC-MSM thought-masters? Only Kobach will draw national attention and national punditry to talk about the things that matter to the people of Mexico that have taken up residence around my Kansas home.

Though I love to see it, The PredictIt polling might be skewed by the inaccurate nationwide perception of Kansas as an unshakable bastion of rock-ribbed-red-rightists where we are in fact much more lily-livered-lint-lickers. Also, the kind of people who watch PredictIt and plunk money down on it probably see Colyer as milquetoast and unknown compared to the nationally famous Kobach name.

I appreciate you indulging me. But this primary has ramifications extending far beyond our humble state in the heart of flyover country. Anything we can do to move the needle is a worthy endeavor.

Sid,

It's going to be interesting to see how much of the "blue dog" disaffected Dems/independents Trump will be able to maintain in 2020 from 2016. He doesn't have to hold all of them because he's going to make up some ground among tradcons and cucks who stayed home.

Joe,

Had a discussion the other day where I was asked to briefly describe Kobach's and Colyer's selling points at the debate I went to. Kobach is easy--repelling the invaders from Kansas and taking a carving knife to our risible state budget. Colyer is a lot harder. "God bless you" was my first response. Then "generic Republican" and finally "Kobach is an extremist".

Agree wrt apprehensiveness about the predicit market. I made the max betting against Trump and for Cruz during the primaries. We're a cucked Christian conservative state, the kind who love the Rick Santorums and the Ted Cruzs of the political class.

I'm tempted to put a little on Colyer as a silver lining if Kobach loses. And when Kobach wins, well, I'm happy to pay $100 or whatever for Kobach to win! But I can't get myself to do it. I want the indicators to be as depressive as possible for the sandle-wearing stencil-necks who are putting all those horrible baby blue Colyer signs all over the county.

Yoder is bad. He's bought and paid for by the big tech/communications/informations companies here (Garmin, Sprint, Cerner, etc). Every other day he has pictures of Indians (dot) on his twitter feed. Not sure if he's proclaimed as much, but he is definitely behind Colyer.

Your state is comparable to the Canadian province of Alberta, excepting the oil industry presence. The prohibitionist laws remained in place years after they vanished in the rest of the respective country. One-party rule is the norm. Both have mostly artificial boundaries. Alberta was the only part of Canada that had a "Tea Party" analogue, but was beaten back by the cuck faction.

Kobach could be headed down the path that Ralph Klein had as the Alberta Governor(ask kmgvictoria). He's better cut out for federal politics as Attorney General, or else the Senate. (give him DOJ and DHS, a real Interior Minister) The governorship has advantages if the US undergoes an earlier-than-expected balkanization if General Secretary Kamala moves for an immediate gun ban.

The comparison doesn't end well, Calgary now has a Muslim mayor, the NDP is in government, and the cucks completely dominate the Right-wing party. Jason Kenney is a younger, uglier version of Brownback.

Joe Biden could probably win back a lot of the disaffected Dems who voted for Trump or stayed home in 2016. But it increasingly looks like Kamala Harris will be the Dems' nominee in 2020.

I expect Kamala Harris will connect even less with Rust Belt whites than Hillary did. Say what you will about Hillary, but she at least was old enough to have a sense of Rust Belt whites existing, and her husband connected with them and even urged her to reach out to them in 2016.

Kamala Harris, a half-black, half-dot Indian from California, probably has absolutely no conception of Rust Belt whites other than that they're dinosaurs who need to bite a meteor, the sooner the better.

While I'm at it, I had huge reservations about Trump pushing for a trade war with China while also threatening one with the EU. What Trump and Juncker agreed to seems entirely promising, so even someone like me is pleasantly surprised with Trump's performance. The kind of upper-middle class, two-college-degrees white Republicans Trump alienated in 2016 will probably share my assessment here: Trump is governing better than expected.

Yoder may lose his seat. I'll certainly be voting to help make it happen. He really is everything that is wrong with the contemporary GOP. The sole reason he's not as bad as Paul Ryan is because he doesn't have as much power as Ryan does... yet.

Agree wrt your assessment about Harris. Otoh she'll be able to get a higher black turnout in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin than Hillary did, especially if Obama really gets behind her, which I think he will. He's been quiet and will probably remain quiet until 2019, then I expect him to start making noise. And because he's been quiet for so long, when he gets noisy people will pay attention.

Trump's worst possible matchup is probably Biden as P and Harris as VP.

As for the Trump-governing-well among educated whites, there's something to that but I think we'll be dealing with "stagflation" by the 2020 election so I'm not sure that assessment will hold.

Good point on black turnout in those states. She'll have that going for her.

What makes you think we'll be dealing with stagflation by then?

At any case, unless the inflation is at a Venezuela or Zimbabwe level, then I don't think it will be as bad as what the Establishment told everyone a Trump presidency would bring back in 2016, so the college educated conservatives who stayed put last time will feel a lot less inclined to do so in 2020.

We're in the early stages of finger pointing between the Trump administration and the Fed, with Trump urging the Fed not to raise rates a couple more times this year as it probably will (even more so now since it'll look like Powell, who is Trump's man, is taking orders if the Fed doesn't raise rates) and the Fed looking to blame the 'trade war'.

The inflation target has now casually moved to an average of 2.0% rather than under 2.0%. Energy prices are leading the surge in commodities. The volatility index remains high, and this is the longest recovery in a century.

Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but Jerome Powell so far hasn't come across as a Trump loyalist, so much as perhaps a conservative-leaning technocrat. The public sniping is a sign that the Fed will stand firm on raising rates.

Whatever his other talents, Trump seldom inspires deep loyalty in those who have worked under him, as we're seeing with the Michael Cohen affair.

Looking at the macroeconomics, inflation is starting to emerge as a concern because the economy is finally revving up. The Fed raising rates shows they're taking measures to keep it under control, and the inflation target moving up to 2% isn't particularly worrisome.

At worst, I think, inflation will become a mild concern by 2020, but I think inflation going up somewhat as the economy increases markedly won't be seen as poor governance. But we'll see in a couple of years.